


Your Heart (Between my Teeth)

by ratherbeblue (orphan_account)



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Minor Violence, Pennywise (IT) is His Own Warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-25 18:56:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20729141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/ratherbeblue
Summary: All he knows is that a voice in the back of his head is whispering, yes, this is it, don’t be afraid now, Richie.So he listens, he listens and leans in, eyes only closing at the last second, not wanting to miss a moment of Eddie’s wide brown eyes and summer freckled skin. Once his eyes close he realizes his mistake.





	Your Heart (Between my Teeth)

**Author's Note:**

> Based off the Benverly scene in Chapter Two, Richie is not nice to himself in this! Full warnings in the end notes if you're worried about anything!  
Title from Between My Teeth by Orla Gartland

Richie sits alone in the hammock, it’s a hot late June day but the underground bunker is cool, and dark, and most importantly far far away from Henry Bowers and his cousin.

Richie feels his own stomach roll at the memory of the last time he saw them, so much for a summer of playing Street Fighter, he’d be lucky if he got one good game day in before school starts now. He can’t tell what what worse at this point, Bowers or the stupid clown, sure the clown has the power to create anything to terrify and kill Richie, but what makes that so much different from what he dealt with every day at school? Especially now that they’re older, Richie has the feeling that he won’t be holding back as much, if what he did to Ben was anything to go by. It makes his blood run cold to think of, but if he’s not careful that missing poster with his own face might just become a harsh reality.

Richie tries to push the thoughts away and focus on his X-Men comic, but it’s a tough job for the tattered issue he’s reading for the third time if he’s being honest. Luckily a new distraction comes in the form of light floating out from the door, two sneaker clad feet making their way down the ladder, a pair of skinny, short clad, suntanned legs following. Richie didn’t have to think twice about who it was.

“Eddie Spaghetti!” He exclaims, making the legs trip over themselves slightly. “You came all this way to join little ol’ me?”

Eddie quickly makes his way down into the clubhouse, closing the door thoroughly above him and landing with his hands on his hips.

“Jesus, Richie! You can’t just do that, I didn’t think anyone else was here.” He chastises him.

“Oh but it’s so fun to watch you squirm, Eds!” Eddie just rolls his eyes as he walks over to the hammock.

“Move over.” He kicks at Richie’s legs and Richie notices a comic book in his hand as well, the newest issue of X-Men, that Richie wanted to buy, before he cashed in his whole week’s allowance for tokens at the Aladdin. 

Richie moves over.

He scrambles up to one end, the shaky fabric protesting his movement, knobby knees sticking out on either side, making room for his friend to sit across from him.

Eddie sits.

He pulls his knees up against himself, feet brushing against Richie’s in a way he knows is unavoidable, but that knowledge doesn’t stop the spark that shoots up his spine now as it does at any contact with him.

Eddie’s angle doesn’t make it easy for him to see Richie, but Richie is free to look down on him, so he does. He watches the little crease between his eyebrows that always shows up when he reads, watches the warm brown of his eyes darting from page to page, he even watches the way his tongue runs across the inside of his lips. He watches it all and tries not to think of the solid warm press of leg against leg.

It’s easy to watch and try not to think until Eddie looks up, Richie didn’t even notice him put the comic book down. Their eyes meet and Richie can feel his face heat up, embarrassed and ashamed at being caught.

He doesn’t catch the way Eddie’s eyes crinkle up as he smiles, he pushes his own comic book up, covering his face and hunching over it instead.

_ Stupid, stupid, stupid… _

Richie feels the hammock moving under him, Eddie’s feet shifting away and he assumes the worst, assumes that Eddie will leave him now, leave him and never come back and tell everyone that-

A hand touches his knee.

He looks up and Eddie has mirrored his position, sitting crossed legged, face much closer to his than before. He’s not exactly looking at him, and his hand is clammy against his skin, but then he glances up, his big brown eyes meeting Richie’s again and before he can make a joke or say  _ anything _ \- Eddie does.

“Can I tell you something, Richie?” 

“Y-yeah,” Richie clears his throat, hating how fucking sincere he sounds and not being able to stop. “Of course.”

“It’s a secret” Eddie tells him. “So you can’t fucking tell anyone, okay? Like seriously it’s really embarrassing and I will never talk to you again if you tell anyone okay? Even Stan.”

Richie smiles at the familiar chiding Eddie gives him,  _ everything was okay _ .

“Oh shit, this must be good.”

“Richie…” Eddie warns him.

“Alright, alright, I promise, you can tell me anything, I won’t tell.” Richie tries his best to give an encouraging smile.

“Okay…” Eddie smiles back, slowly starts again, like he’s nervous about the whole thing. “I’ve never kissed anyone.”

Richie’s smile freezes on his face,  _ why is he telling me this _ ?

He recovers quickly enough though, smile growing with good humor.

“Well if you want to change that, all you had to do was ask, Eds! But I should warn you, I’m not sure how much Mrs.K would like-”

“Beep beep, Rich.” Eddie says. “And what if I did?”

“Did what?”

“Want to change that.”

Richie feels his brain stop working for a second.

“Wha-”

“What if I did?”

Eddie challenges him, he’s always fucking challenging him.

And Richie knows how he must look, like a dumb, lovestruck, idiot, dark eyes too wide behind his thick lenses and frames. He knows his mouth is open, baring his buck teeth and making himself look like a boy incapable of any intelligent thought.

And he sort of is, in that moment, waiting for something the rational side of him, no matter how small, knows is impossible. He’s waiting for it, until he isn’t.

Eddie must do something, lean in, or tilt his head, or curl his lip, or scrunch up his adorable button nose, but whatever it is Richie couldn’t say. All he knows is that a voice in the back of his head is whispering,  _ yes, this is it, don’t be afraid now, Richie _ .

So he listens, he listens and leans in, eyes only closing at the last second, not wanting to miss a moment of Eddie’s wide brown eyes and summer freckled skin. Once his eyes close he realizes his mistake.

Eddie laughs, but no, that’s not right, Eddie fucking  _ cackles _ . It’s not something he’s never done before, but it’s not always unkind, and there’s always a reason behind it.

And right now that reason is Richie, Richie who thought he could, what, just fucking go and kiss his friend? What the actual fuck is wrong with him, he’s such and idiot, a gross, perverted, fucking idiot-

“Richie, you actually thought-? That’s sick, Richie.” Eddie looked at him, wide brown eyes still cackling at him somehow. “You’re sick.”

Richie feels hot and lightheaded, like when he spent three turns on the Viking’s Revenge at the fair even when Eddie  _ told him not to _ \- But now it’s worse, because instead of an underlying feeling of excitement and fun it’s all shame and panic. Something harsh and cold is wrapping around his heart like a vice and  _ squeezing _ .

“Eddie, I- I didn’t, it was a joke, I wasn’t really, I would never-”

“Oh, please. I’ve seen the way you look at me. When you think I can’t, I’ve seen it Richie, I always see it.” Eddie’s skin is turning pale, grey and rotten flesh sprouting up across his usually warm cheeks, he looks like he did back at the Neibolt house, back in the mattress. “Not such a secret afterall is it?”

Suddenly he looks even more like he did back in the house because his mouth is spewing black sludge again, it’s falling down past his chin and onto the hammock and finally Richie makes a leap for it, pushing himself back and falling to the dusty floor.

He hit the ground hard, knocking his glasses off with the movement. He reaches behind himself, searching blindly for his glasses, a weapon, something, anything.

His hand grips around the cold cylindrical shape of something, underneath a crate.

_ Yes _ .

“You’re not Eddie, you’re not!”

It moved its face closer, close enough that Richie could almost see it clearly. White and red makeup and horrifying wide eyes, worst of all, those dripping, huge, teeth.

“That’s right, Richie, Eddie would never get this close to you, would he? No, that would make him just like you, a dirty, filthy, dis-” 

Richie moves fast, foot down and hips up, his gangly limbs finally an advantage as he tries to get enough leverage to swing and-

Richie slams down on the Clown’s distorted smile hard, his sweaty hands holding the steel baseball bat Stan had left in the bunker harder than he thought possible. He feels and hears the rows of sharp white teeth crack and crumble underneath the impact and a jolt of satisfaction rushes through him. 

“You’re not Eddie, and you’re not real, you can’t hurt me!” Richie screams as he continues to bash the bat around wildly, eyes closed even though his lack of glasses makes it impossible to see anyway, hoping to hit anything that would buy him a little more time. His throat beginning to feel raw and dry but he can’t stop his own screams as he panics and fights against the creature.

After a while he realizes he hasn’t been hitting anything and stops. He blinks around and doesn’t see any flashes of red or white or any movement in the bunker at all.

With that he takes a shaky breath and tries to swallow, kneeling down on the ground to locate his fallen glasses, which he finds easily enough-luckily no damage.

He sits on the dirty ground, spiders and dust be damned, and tries to calm his breathing. He uses every trick he knows, a few he learned just for Eddie, and he’s not sure how long it takes, but eventually he feels like he’s not going to have a fucking heart attack.

He stands up, limbs still shaking and not really wanting to work the way he’d like, but they listen well enough to get him back on the hammock at least, even if his fist can’t quite stop clenching around a bat that’s no longer there and his arm keeps jerking out to the side. He gets there.

He lies down, not really sure where to go from here, he sure as hell can’t go out and function in normal society, and sadly, he really doesn’t want to be alone either. 

He mentally curses Bill again for making them go into that fucking house, for letting Eddie get hurt, and for punching him. If it weren’t for him at least he’d be able to go to someone, now he didn’t know who was on his side or not, who he could go to at all. 

_ That’s not fair. _

Richie knows he could be blamed for all of it just as much if not more than Bill could. It’s his fault for egging him on, his fault for leaving Eddie alone, his fault for being such a weird fucking asshole that the only group of friends he could find were a bunch of losers that went into crackhouses for fun.

And he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Richie smiles to himself.

Maybe he should apologize.

His thoughts are cut off by a sudden light filtering in from the doorway.

“W-who’s there?” He tries to control is, but his hoarse voice still shakes.

“Richie?” It’s Eddie’s voice and it really really shouldn’t, and Richie really really wishes it didn’t but it does send a shiver down his spine, makes his blood run cold. “Hold on.”

He climbs down, quicker that It had. 

“Eddie? Is that you?” He knows he sounds scared, he fucking knows he does.

“Of course it’s me, what the fuck are you talking about?” Eddie turns to him, he’s wearing a different outfit than It was and he’s not holding a comic book, instead he has windblown hair and a flush across his cheeks and nose.

He tries to step forward.

“Stop! Stop right there, fucking, prove it’s you before you come any closer.”

Eddie’s face falls, shock and confusion, and not nearly enough, but a little anger. It’s all happening so fast and the words are coming out faster than he can think rationally.

“Rich, what’s going on? You’re scaring me.” He moves forward again.

Richie wants to scream so he does.

“Stop!” He does. “Fucking-tell me something, something only you would say, please Eds.”

Eddie raises his eyebrows and opens his mouth, just like Richie words fall out before he can really think.

“I-I… I love y-your stupid fucking teeth!” The last part came out all in a rush, like Eddie wasn’t quite sure what words would come out, just that some had to.

“I-” Richie stopped, his terrified expression quickly morphing into one of confusion and then-he laughed. “I’m sorry, you love my  _ what _ ?”

Eddie finally gets that last bit of anger he’s been missing.

“Stop fucking laughing, asshole. It’s the only thing I could think of and you were giving me a panic attack, what the hell is going on?” Richie just keeps laughing and Eddie turns redder by the minute. “Oh, so now it’s fucking funny, huh? Oh, real funny, give the asthmatic a fucking panic attack in a dusty bunker, are you trying to get me killed? You know dust particles from places like this can get in your lungs and stay there forever? Not just a few years, forever, like my whole life, asshole? Is that what you want? For my lungs to be full of shitty underground particles until I die? Stop laughing!”

Richie hiccups around a laugh, trying to catch his breath for the second time that afternoon.

“I’m sorry, Eds-”

Eddie starts again.

“Don’t-”

“I’m just so fucking happy to see you.”

“Call- Huh?”

Richie can see it now, this is Eddie. Looking equally pissed and concerned about him, a sharp shell of annoyance and a melted pool of affection underneath, no hiding, no holding back, just pure Eddie. 

Eddie who shot milk out his nose during lunch after Richie made a joke, but got him back by slipping a worm into his pudding the next day. Eddie who had stood with him alone, after all the other losers had gone home, laughing so hard that they both peed their pants and had to jump in the river so no one would know. Eddie who had always met him, jab for jab, joke for joke, who never stopped fighting and loving him back even when he felt like he wasn’t worth it. 

Just.. _ .Eddie _ .

Richie didn’t think he would ever stop loving Eddie, it just didn’t seem possible at that moment. Something curled deep in his heart and he pictured himself, 10, 20, 30 years from now, far away or right by his side, nothing constant, nothing solid that he could latch onto except loving Eddie.

And apparently Eddie loved… his teeth.

His teeth...of all the fucking things...Richie hated his teeth. They were, as Eddie had actually told him before a fucking discrace for the son of a dentist of all things. The front two overlapping, the gap between his top left canine and molars that’s big enough to stick his tounge through, all of them yellowed from not enough brushing, and frankly just too fucking big for even a mouth as huge as his. 

Richie smiled again, showing all his teeth, and pulled Eddie into a hug.

“Richie I- Oh, um...okay.”

Eddie hugged him back, his cast covered arm bent awkwardly against their sides.

Richie breathed easy.

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings:  
Verbal self harm  
Violence (against Pennywise)  
It typical grossness and fear  
Internalized homphobia  
Basically It tricks Richie into thinking he's Eddie and scares him in a similar manner to how It scared Ben in his Chapter Two flashback scene, but afterwards the really Eddie shows up so it's all better :)


End file.
